Kyūgakkō
Kyūgakkō (Shirakawan Yashiman: 宮学校, 'Palace Academies') are an elite type of state-owned postgraduate higher education establishment in Chisei, designed to prepare students for senior roles in the civil service. They are highly selective, competitive and prestigious; their graduates, known as Shinshi (進士), are a dominant force in Chiseian public and private society.
Kyūgakkō students are selected for admission as graduates of bachelor degree programs, based chiefly on ranking in competitive national written and oral exams. To qualify for the national exams, candidates usually must have also attained a Shūsai (秀才) civic foundational diploma, requiring two to three years of dedicated preparatory classes; typically taken alongside or before a bachelor's degree.
Although many of the academies also effectively function as general business or engineering schools, study is considered the beginning of public service, and in most institutions students are mandated to serve at least 10 years as civil servants immediately after their graduation. Consequently, only Chiseian subjects and citizens are typically eligible to study there, but international students seeking to enter academic or legal positions are accepted.
The majority of prospective students (63%) are also graduates of the largely private network of koganegakkō or 'Golden Schools', and consequently kyūgakkō are often closely associated with the Kōmuzoku (公務族), the traditional aristocratic civic and business elite of Chisei, and are sometimes criticised for classism and a lack of diversity.
Like the similar but less prestigious Kōshigakkō kakyo prep-schools, the Daigaku are funded and governed directly by the Daigaku-ryō (Board of Royal Academies) of the Kōshīn, rather than the Chiseian Ministry of Education.
Notable kyūgakkō
Hosu Kyūgakkō
The oldest survivng daigaku in the country, established during the Gejō dynasty. As a bastion of classical learning, it has consistently maintained a status of paramount prestige in the humanities, and more recently it has become a prominent business school.
Eito Kyūgakkō
The alma mater of 9 out of the 12 postwar Chancellors of Chisei. A preeminent school of economics and the political sciences founded relatively recently in 1949, succeeding the Old Eito Daigaku destroyed during the war.
Terume Kyūgakkō
Others
- Saiyu Daigaku
- Nishimon Daigaku
- Kitaji Daigaku
- Wanshu Daigaku
- Taigaku Esai'i